Friegsid Khor'shok
' Friegsid Khor'shok', better known by the appellation "Katamayla Khor'shok", is a 42-year old batarian working as a Captain with the Blue Suns' 9 Commando. Early Life Born on Khar'shan to a military family, Khor'shok commissioned into the Hegemony Army in one of the many state-sponsored military academies. However, due to its proximity to the capital, the Khar'shan Academy lent its graduates an extra air of prestige, one Khor'shok did not hesitate to leverage. Having received his coveted assignment to the infantry and platoon command, Friegsid completed his training and reported to his unit just in time for the humans' conflict with the Hegemony in the Attican Traverse. The Hegemony Army The War of Human Aggression (as the Hegemony forces soon termed it) was a brutal conflict, with high casualties on both sides. During his first forays into combat against the lesser two-eyes, Khor'shok discovered something about himself: while more than a few of his peers cracked under the stress of the long campaigns, he thrived, and even enjoyed it. After all, the furred two-eyes were not truly people, were they? This was simply a campaign of pest control. Torfan taught Khor'shok otherwise. By the second day, superior human tactics and leadership had decimated his company. Rattled at the failure of his superiors, he rallied the remnants of his unit to make a stand against the numerically superior human force, finally winning the day for the Hegemony with a well-timed nerve gas bombardment. For his actions on Torfan, the Hegemony awarded him the Cross of Goronak, an award minted for those whose actions lived up to a legendary batarian hero of yore. That was the zenith of Khor'shok's time with the Hegemony Army. The inevitable traumas a losing army experiences after a war were more than enough to shake his faith in the Hegemony - territory abandoned to the two-eyes, the army firing good soldiers because it needed to downsize, cuts in pay and benefits... all of it shook the faith of the once-stolid soldier in his government. And soon he got a message on his omnitool stating that his services were no longer needed. For Khor'shok, this was unacceptable. The military was his life, he neither knew nor did he want to know any other. However, an alternative soon presented itself. The Blue Suns The Blue Suns were always on the lookout for proven officers to join its ranks, and Khor'shok proved to be quite the catch. For both parties it was mutually beneficial: for Khor'shok, he would (or so he thought) continue soldiering under worthy batarians and receive a higher rank, and the Suns managed to snatch up yet another experienced officer. Khor'shok, however, remained proud of his service to the Hegemony, and insisted on wearing his decoration on his Suns hardsuit. Katamayla Unfortunately, like most matters military, one party got screwed over. In this case, it was Khor'shok: rather than being added to the roster of a batarian-helmed unit, he was sent to Katamayla with orders cut for the newly-formed 13 Commando, under the command of Major Kobus Puren, a human. Even more so than in regular armed forces, the mercenary commanders of the Blue Suns put their own personal stamp on a unit, and the Thirteenth was a piratical, unprofessional outfit. Khor'shok did his best to install soldierly discipline in the men under his charge, but it was a losing battle, and he knew it. After a long campaign to relieve a hanar mission station (one that resulted in the deaths of the majority of the priests due to Major Puren's bullheaded tactics), Khor'shok was informed that he had new orders. Effective immediately, he was to be transferred out of the wild and woolly Thirteenth to the more squared-away Ninth Commando, slugging it out on the far side of the planet. Allegations of humanism had long dogged the unit's commander, and the Suns were transferring as many officers and enlisted of other species to the Ninth to rectify the issue. Much to Khor'shok's chagrin, his new commander was also a human, one Major Arthur Daye. The blunt officer was unimpressed by his new subordinate's proudly-displayed decoration...but his battle record, on the other hand, earned the batarian another command, 92 Commando. Thus began a contentious and extraordinary working relationship that became the stuff of Suns legend---or at least of 9 Commando barracks-room banter. 9 Commando Khor'shok soon became an instantly-recognizable figure in the Ninth, strutting about with his decoration always gleaming on his chest. Some (including Daye) dismissed him as a fop, but after his first action the naysayers abruptly shut up, and Khor'shok's commander suddenly realized that he had a very valuable asset on his hands. 92 Commando, previously a fairly mediocre unit, soon became Daye's first choice for actions. The Katamayla contract was eventually concluded, with the aid of Captain Nassa D'Veyra's Eclipse company, much to Khor'shok's distaste, and 9 Commando returned to base on Bekenstein. Along with Major Daye, Khor'shok was one of the officers picked by higher headquarters to represent the corporation at a convention on Bekenstein, an assignment he didn't particularly relish---after all, dealing with unctuous sales reps and wannabes desperate to join was hardly soldier's work. Especially not when he saw the Major acting all chummy with Eclipse officers. Fortunately, there was soldier's work to be done soon enough. The Ninth's next deployment was the Yndolan Civil War, where the central government had shot its bolt against the rebel movement in the disastrous campaign that had earned the catchy nickname of the Month of Mayhem. 9 Commando managed to provide a backbone to the federal forces, and managed to annihilate the rebels with Major Daye's customary lack of subtlety. Following the Yndolan action, 9 Commando was stood-down on Omega. What should have been a fairly quiet period of R and R was marred, however, by the Cerberus invasion. Adjutants cut down mercenaries like a scythe, and eventually the Ninth was forced to retreat to Suns HQ at Katange arcology. After assisting in the defense of the arcology for several days, they were evacuated off the station itself. Katamayla again The swell of pride Khor'shok felt at another tally for 92's impressive battle record was short-lived when he learned of 9 Commando's next deployment: their old stomping grounds of Katamayla, where the rebels had returned once more, and this time with outside support to boot. Expecting an easy fight, Daye deployed the Ninth as fast as the corporation's formidable logistics arm could do so. Expectations were quickly dashed, as the newly-trained rebels proved to be a match for the battle-hardened mercenaries of the Ninth. Casualties soon began to mount, and hopes of an easy contract were quickly discarded. True to form, Khor'shok and 92 were in the thick of the fighting, but despite raid after raid on outpost after outpost, 9 Commando was no closer to finding the rebels' mysterious advisors than they'd been when they first arrived. The mysterious benefactors revealed themselves soon enough: the Reaper indoctrinees had done their part, and the Old Machines followed up in fairly short order. The Reaper invasion of Katamayla was a disaster for 9 Commando---fully half the unit, sub-commandos 91 and 93, were wiped out by Reapers while evacuating the capital to flee to their outpost at Kuvabu. Khor'shok, already rattled by the news of Khar'shan's destruction, was barely holding it together by the time he and 92 made it to the outpost to link up with the remnants of the Katamaylan Army. After building up their strength for some time (and trading casualties with the Reapers) the combined mercenary-regular Army forces attempted a breakout to capture spaceships from the capital's spaceport. Despite suffering heavy casualties, the Ninth managed to make it off-planet to regroup with whatever force would take them on. Khor'shok had by now shaken off his despondency---destroying the Reapers was all that mattered, a task he would devote himself to single-mindedly for the remainder of the war. As it turned out, that wouldn't be too long. 9 Commando had made it off of Katamayla just in time to link up with Task Force Hammer for the liberation of Earth. Re-formed into a smaller, two sub-Commando sized outfit (with Khor'shok of course retaining command of 92), the Ninth struck out across what once was London to liberate a processing camp on the city's outskirts----but were interrupted by a flash of blue light... Post-War 9 Commando, like pretty much every other infantry unit in the Milky War, had taken obscene casualties during the Reaper War. Post-war, the newly-promoted Lieutenant-Colonel Daye placed significant importance on getting the unit back up and running. 92 Commando, filled back up to its programmed strength with new recruits, was at the top of the efficiency reports for the sub-Commandos. Khor'shok was in his element, imparting the spit-and-polish of the old Hegemony Army to the new men and women under his command. It wasn't long before 92 was checked off as combat-ready. Just in time too, for the Ninth's services were needed on a far-flung world that had decided to have a go at independence, one with a mouthful of a name. Tshombesha (To be updated) Behind the Scenes The character of "Katamayla" Khor'shok was loosely based on Siegfried "Kongo" Mueller, a German-born mercenary who served with Mike Hoare's Fifth Commando during the Simba Rebellion. Category:Characters Category:Batarians Category:Blue Suns